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Turkey: Jenson faces the press in the Friday Five
By Phil Huff May 8 2008
Honda Racing F1's Jenson Button attended the Friday Five press conference today, talking about safety in the sport, Canadian restaurants, and getting involved in an odd attempt at a word association game. He also neatly sidestepped the inevitable question regarding Super Aguri. Here's the complete transcript of what Button had to say...
Obviously points for you in the last race - that must have been encouraging especially with the upgrade you had as well.

Yes, it was very encouraging. The first few races, in qualifying, were reasonable but I struggled in the race to have a good performance basically because twice I crashed at turn one. It was finally nice to get to the end of a grand prix and to be not just scoring one point, but to get three points on the board. It was a good race and the pace of the car was reasonable. There is a lot of work still to be done but the positives are we are improving and every race we go to we feel we are getting a little bit more out of the car, and so far everything is going to plan.

Have you got more bits coming here?

A few little things. We have got a few tweaks here which should make a bit of time. Also this is a circuit which I think will suit our car a little bit more than Barcelona which is very bumpy and I think that ride quality is an area where we are lacking. We have got a few tweaks on that side and it is a smoother circuit, so I will be looking for a good performance in qualifying and then we will see. If everyone finishes it is very difficult to score points because you have got six very fast cars and you are fighting over two points but we will aim for points for sure.

What about the lack of traction control here? How much of a difference is that going to make?

On this circuit in some places it’s not going to be an issue at all because you have got a lot of positive camber which helps you through the corner. There will be other places where it will be difficult. The last three corners are very slow, so it is going to be interesting there. But also the temperatures aren’t high here, so we are not going to be overheating the tyres or causing problems to the rear tyres in that way. But because it is a low temperature we might have issues with the graining on the softer tyre. We will have to wait and see.

It is a milestone for your team-mate Rubens Barrichello this weekend and he will no doubt be out celebrating.

It’s 257 races this weekend, I’ve been told.

It is!

That’s fantastic. And he doesn’t look a day over 37!

Is he showing any signs of slowing down in his old age?

No, he has been on it this year. He has been doing a very good job. It is good to have a competitive team-mate and a very experienced team-mate as he is. We have got a very good team and a very good team atmosphere and he is good to have alongside.

Just a few words from you on the current level of safety and the job that the FIA does to ensure you guys are all safe over a grand prix weekend.

It is great that all the time we are taking a view to try and help safety. As the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association that’s our main aim as well. It is good that we are all working together for a safer sport. It is never going to be the safest sport in the world, we all know that. But there are certain things we can work on to not take away the excitement but to make the sport a little bit safer.

Jenson, Monaco 2003, Robert last year in Canada, and Heikki in Spain. I believe all three of you lost consciousness and had no real recollection of the crashes that you had. Having no recollection, how much does that actually help you get over it, not having the mental image in your mind of exactly how it all played out?

I think when you walk away and you’re fine the next day, you get over it very quickly. So obviously if you have an injury you think about it more, but when the accident’s happened, you know you’ve walked away from a situation which you probably didn’t think you would walk away from. You have a lot of confidence in the car that you’re driving and the circuits that you’re racing on.

Jenson, you mentioned the tyres just now. You have hard tyres here and last year it was 50 degrees on the asphalt, now we maybe have 20-something. Do you think it will be a problem to get the hard tyres up to temperature?

I think it’s going to be very different, for sure, but in the winter we do a lot of testing in colder temperatures and we are able to get tyre temperature, but it’s just going to be very different to what we’re used to here. The tyres are obviously going to work in a very different way and over the next two days, that’s what we’re going to be working on and working with. The information from last year will also be useful but it’s going to be very different to what we’ll experience this year, for sure, both tyres (compounds), not just one tyre.

I would like you to fast forward one month from now and just give me a quick answer: if I say to you Montreal, what do you reply?

Great, great steak, fantastic steak. Four weeks from now, I wouldn’t have a clue. I think we will have a greater understanding of the title contenders. For us, as a team, I think you will see us improving, for sure, not enough to fight with the title contenders, but improving all the same.

I just wanted a quick word association, that was all.

Steak was my quick answer. There are loads of good restaurants. There’s one called Buena Notte which is fantastic. Girls, girls, that’s a good one.

Can I ask you a private question: it’s Mothers’ Day on Sunday, can I have a few words from you about your early days, the first help your mother gave you, maybe sacrificing or giving you your first car to drive, helping you in your career, whatever?

Whoops. Is it Mothers’ Day on Sunday? OK. I think we can say that our mums have been a big part of our lives. Yeah, my Mum is a big fan of racing… you can ask her, she’s going to be in Monaco. She’s been a big fan of my racing, been a big supporter. She’s kept my feet on the ground for sure.

It is said that Honda didn’t want the Super Aguri team any longer. What can you say about that, and how bad is it for Formula One to lose a team during the season?

Personally, I think you need to speak to Oshima-san or Nick Fry who will be here over the weekend. They will be able to give you a much better answer than I can. But obviously for the drivers, for Takuma and Anthony, I’m very sorry for them, because I’m sure it’s very difficult doing the first few races and then not having a job racing in F1 from then on, so really just sorry to those guys and hopefully they can get back into Formula One in the future.

To go back to the safety barrier, would you guys feel happier if you had a safety barrier which didn’t have bits and pieces flying off; that there was just foam behind a steel wall as is being used in America?

I think the angles at which we hit the wall are far greater than what they do in America, on the ovals. I think if any of us had hit a SAFER barrier, it wouldn’t have been that safe, the speed and the angle at which we would have hit it.          

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